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Topic: Why social networks are a threat to life as some know it (Read 18111 times)

I just hope that one day people will stop calling others paranoid whenever someone raises privacy issues. For example everytime I raise this issue, someone would call me paranoid or overly sensitive and try to show me as a crack head. Well I want to make something clear. I am not worried about someone is trying to catch me, listen my conversations or watch my every step. This is not the case at all. What I am worried is that the power and level of control they gain after all this data mining. I am not worried about individuals at all, they would be very busy to watch everyone seperately. They are rather interested in "crowd behaviour" which is a priceless data. That is why MS or Google can throw billions of dollars in less than a nano second into this business. If I had money I would probably do the same thing. Buy facebook and see how silly people can get.

I am not against social sites or similar enterprises at all. But "ends does not justify means". Why they do is more important than what I gain out of this deal. And to be honest you think that you are getting a good damn free service, in reality you are getting the short end of the deal. What you get from such relationship(you and facebook) is so little compared what they gain.

I would actually pay for a social site(as long as they have a very clear protective privacy policy), I am just not interested in any of those free online services. If you want to be part of it, go ahaed. But please do not call others tinhat people when they raise issues.

Elgg is an open source application for rolling out a social network. It installs like any Web-based software, but instead of a blog or a wiki, it gives you all the components of a social networking site -- your own MySpace! It's popular with educational institutes and used by several universities across the world, in addition to powering social networks of companies such as Swatch. The new Elgg 1.0, released last month, is modular in design, making it easier for developers to build social networks around the platform.

It's licensed under GPLv2 so all you'd need is a host. Might be a fun free project if you can find somebody that has spare space on their LAMP/WAMP and some extra bandwidth for you to piggyback on. (I did a quick google and there are also Elgg-friendly hosting sites available for less than $10/mo!)

If you're into the social networking thang, why settle for just your own forum or blog?

40hz , do not worry, your original intention was understood properly here

What I was trying to say that when many people talk about issues they forget that they lack some quality information to push their ideas. I personally like to insist on ideas that I am %100 sure and I understand very well.

When people stop being cheap and start actually paying for their web servers and space, they will see that most of the web server companies out there offer these kinds social networking applications either installed or ready to install on their servers. You just click a button and it install itselfs on the server and you will have your own little social site. You never know maybe you can sell it to google as well one day.

Kartal,I don't think you're paranoid; actually, I follow what you write about privacy because as you say, you have an understanding of these technologies.I don't, and it all seems very complicated to me, so I'd rather err om the side of caution.

But...I thought in a previous post you indicated that you liked social networking, perhaps I'm mistaken?I think it was twitter?

Anyway, I consider your views to be conservative and well thought-out.That's all.

I would like ask one thing thou, how come a big player like Microsoft(I believe it was ms) offered some zillion dollars to FB? Obviously there needs to be some sort of financial return so that MS offered such giant number. Do you think that MS offered such giant number so that they could operate a public chat room only? You people are naive in my book.